September This month cuts its own hair, the trees’ dream of going bald and old roses sport candelabras. The mosses cannot hold on as tightly as they did in June. The forsythia droops like a girl’s braids at the end of the first day of school. Black-eyed Susans flirt over the heads of dead-headed daisies. […]
Read more "September"Border Stones Even death is just a concept we put on the bare facts of things. Alluvium and sunlight, names for the annealing world, the dough that turns into bread. I forfeit opinions because I want the startled wings without the assumption of the bird. In the forest, I’m simply dazzled. My heart may hurt, […]
Read more "Border Stones"Wilderness You call to me and I go. I leave my compass; I know North. I leave my rosary; my faith is in your Aurora Borealis. I’ll follow your light through the foothills. The spines of leaves shiver, emerald pools show me the way. I pray. For you, I’d catch a fish in my teeth. […]
Read more "Wilderness"August It is no easier to escape August than January – late summer lassitude bows the asters, curls the sunflowers just as the blizzard quiets winter. My hammock is my sled hurtling with frogs in first fall of alder leaves, swinging over plums fried on the patio, watching the squirrel choose soft figs over peanuts. […]
Read more "August"Turning Point when the caterpillar digests itself or orange leaves erode with dry veins. the Dagger Moth appears a pile of mold plastered in a corner, shed of its fur. when the rings of a tree seem lost because they are no longer cut open by lumberjacks when …. hold on. hold on to… like […]
Read more "Turning Point"Rescue By the gas station rust dumpsters, against wavelengths of fence links, she tucks in legs, sucks her menthol, a kid unknown to the hour-rush home. She senses the halo around gas pumps, under canopy’s down-shining underside. It lures a luna moth, green as lime leaves, baited like she is to these fluorescent oases. As […]
Read more "Rescue"Delta Mouth Moon pull swift tide bringing arrowheads quiver dropped loosened skirt strings tight arm and notch to bow dead elks bloat in the shore foam Moon swift pushing so saturnine up a slick and bawdy ship hull up a sickly girl-thigh on a naked shoreline Moon full drip ink on a violet dry notches […]
Read more "Delta Mouth"Reviews of Crime Novels from the First Half of This Year A night unsettled, creepy with rumbled omens. Lightning! Counting to the slam of sky collisions. Beneath a cone of lamplight, I turn the page to the solstice reviewer who tots up semi-annual sales pitches and slams of stories: mercenaries, billboard illustrators, rotting heiresses in […]
Read more "Reviews of Crime Novels from the First Half of This Year"Your friends are not your friends Your friends are not your friends. There is no such thing as a friend. The wasp devours the honeybee on his dutiful search For the final flower. The flower stagnates, smelling sweet for no one. If it’s true that you kill the things you love Then she loved me […]
Read more "Your friends are not your friends"Between Grief and Joy The beaten path is nondescript, a right of way through pristine lawns and tree-lined streets of gracious homes, well-shaded in the heat of day and sound as caves on winter nights, with mantled fires burning low to warm the dens of hibernating souls. You head due south beyond the park and […]
Read more "Between Grief and Joy"